Bouchon Normand - Le Havre

Starters were ok, good the tripe, desserts below average. No English

As a crew member working on board a ship that has docked in Le Havre, we were looking for a restaurant that had a convenient location and traditional French food, but for a very reasonable price. We came across Bouchon Normand, which was in walking distance from the cruise ship shuttles. We received a warm welcome with open doors, and very friendly staff. There wasn't an English menu, but the server was very helpful in helping us choose what was best to order. We started with fresh baguette and Rillette de Cochon. It included a fresh salad, toasted baguette, and a pork pâté with mustard seed. Our entrees included the Píece du boudon, with your sauce of choice. We chose the Camembert sauce. It was absolutely delicious and cooked to perfection. The other enter was the Camembert cheese platter which came with a wheel of freshly baked Camembert cheese, toasted baguette, sliced apples, potatoes, ham, and salami. It was also served with a fresh salad on the side. For dessert, we ordered a shot of espresso and ended up ordering another because it was in the words of my date "utter perfection!" I would highly recommend this place to anyone who stops in Le Havre! A wonderful experience and great service!

Where to start on this list of disasters? There are three menus - two were delivered and the one that had interested us outside (the market menu) was not. It finally appeared on request. After twenty minutes of zero service we had to plead for bread. Then request butter. Then water. After thirty minutes someone finally deigned to take our order. There was no explanation of the menus or personality from any of the waitresses or the maitre'd. Getting information about the dishes was like pulling teeth. The food arrived. The soup was good but mysteriously had a balsamic dressing swirled around the plate which had nothing to do with the flavour of the dish. The roast pork was as dry as cardboard, still had pieces of string embedded in the meat which I had to extract from my teeth and the sauce was bizarre. The fish had no flavour and was served with mushy lentils, two teaspoons of sauce and a wilted lettuce leaf. All of this could have been written off as bad luck for us until the bill arrived. We were charged for a three course meal despite having only had two courses, and were told that because it was a Sunday, we HAD to have three courses! This bizarre rule does not apply for the rest of the week and was not explained to us by the waitress who took our order. It is written on one of the multiple menus, however given we were hungry and didn't read the small print we were punished.When we pointed this out to the waitress, who then got the maitre'd, who then got the chef, instead of applying the golden rule of service that the customer is always right, each member of staff proceeded to give us attitude and blame us for their poor service. And they refused to change the bill, insisting on charging us for desserts that we had not had and did not want! Surely any professional in the service industry, in this situation would have said 'sorry for the confusion, we'll change the bill'??!! Appalling attitude and incredibly unprofessional.

We arrived early evening, the only two diners: despite this the meal took a long time to be served partly because the staff (3 front of house, at least 2 in the kitchen) were busy having their own meal and chatting. My wife is a coeliac and when told that my wife could not eat gluten the waitress shouted across the empty restaurant to the owner asking what was gluten and what on the menu was suitable. They needed to go away for some time to consult, came back and gave us conflicting advice and changed our order mid way through the meal. It would have been embarrassing if not so funny!We ordered a carafe of cote du rhone (not available), we ordered a carafe of tourainne (not available). The waitress thought this funny!The food was actually quite nice, especially the beetroot and goats cheese 'ravioli', the fish well cooked but the desserts were disappointing.We seemed to be an inconvenience and I find it hard to understand the high scores other diners have given this restaurant - perhaps we were just unlucky but we will not be going there again.

This is one of the few retaurants open in Le Harve on a Sunday evening, it has been very recently refurbished and has a lovely atmosphere. The food is traditional French cooking with as much as possible being sourced locally. Our French friends children tucked into tripe,( we did try it ), they could have had brains if they wanted!! whilst we enjoyed the fish and meat dishes which i would suggest were more to an english palate. The service was good the food was good and a nice friendly relaxed atmosphere. Restaurant appeared to have a number of returning locals which is always a good sign. a mix of young families, couples and a larger group.